Vital Missions
by CaBil
Summary: A Buffy has to complete a mission. Spoilers for up to the first episode of season 6


Vital Missions  
A Buffy fan-fic  
Summer of Violence series, part 2  
Spoiler Alert: I consider all material up to the first episode of season 6 fair game.  
Author: CaBil@aol.com  
Feel free to contact me if you have any feedback or questions.  
  
  
According to the Sunnydale Metro Area phonebook, there were only three 24-hour convenience  
stores within 1 hour's travel time of downtown, which was the furthest she was permitted to roam.  
  
The first one was burned down, with the acrid odor still in the air. The second one was open, but  
it required a few minutes for Buffy to complete the precise procedure to back the vehicle properly  
into the parking space. For a few moments, an internal debate was fought over whether or not the  
car was sufficiently parallel to the lines of the parking space and centered correctly, but eventually  
determined that it was within acceptable parameters.  
  
A brief exit check determined that the keys were firmly secured, the doors were locked, and  
sufficient funds for purchase were prepared. An energetic walk to the doors, and careful opening  
of them, and her goal was within reach.  
  
As the door chime rang, the other people in the store turned to look at her. There was the employee  
behind the counter and 5 customers in front of it. Uncertain of where the items would be since there  
was no location guide at the entrance, she sprightly walked to the counter, and tapped on the  
shoulder of one of the customers blocking her way.  
  
"Pardon me sir, but I need to ask the employee a question."  
  
The customer turned and looked at her curiously. The others merely laughed in a grating way on  
a high frequency. But it would not be socially acceptable to comment on that. So the slight, polite  
smile remained fixed on her face.  
  
On the next frame capture on her imaging system, an anomalous reading began a diagnostic. A  
hand was heading toward her, curled in a fist. A few picoseconds later, part of her personality  
emulation program was swapped out of RAM and a combat diagnostic subsystem was put into it's  
place, which promptly reran the last few seconds of footage and re-id'd the situation that her social  
interaction programs had misidentified. The employee was frozen in fear, with five non-humans  
clustered around the counter, stuffing themselves with assorted snacks and demanding money. The  
non-humans were then identified as demons, for despite being bipedal their skin tone was wrong and  
their ambient body temperature as determined by IR image interpolation was at least twenty degrees  
higher than human norm.  
  
The combat diagnostic then loaded the library files of hand-to-hand combat maneuvers, along with  
experience files about demon combat strengths and weaknesses. A glitch in loading scrambled her  
file headers for the language subdirectories.   
  
The punch was still 6.8935 cm away from impact. Pre-combat protocols began to activate. Fluid  
was redirected underneath her cheek to diffuse the kinetic impact of the blow throughout her  
understructure. The endoskeleton memory metals had a discrete charge released into them to make  
them more flexible for impact. Pneumatics and other motors began to build up charges for fast  
movement. Breathing emulation shut down to conserve power, and a tiny fan in the false windpipe  
started up to expel waste heat.  
  
Impact was 1.23 cm away when all protocols were in place.  
  
As her head slightly rocked from the impact, she was already moving.  
  
"OwwwrrrrrGGHHHHHHHH!!!!" Target A, who had thrown the punch was already falling into  
systemic shock by the time its yell had risen. A slight step forward, placing her foot over its to keep  
it in place, a grab of the wrist of the punching arm with her right hand, and an acceleration of her  
left arm in striking mode to point of impact speed of 150mph had not only broken Target A's arm,  
but snapped it apart at the elbow joint. As Target A sank to its knees, with Target B through E  
temporarily frozen in surprise, it allowed a moment for patter protocol to engage.  
  
"Felicitous monkeying on your day of lassitude!"  
  
Patter protocol and aural subsystems argued for a moment, debating whether or not that was really  
the intent of patter, but the mislabeled language directories stumped them. Combat subsystems  
immediately reassigned their clock cycles to more productive activities.  
  
The employee was already ducking down behind the counter as she considered her next move.   
Target C was closest to her, and moving to engage, B, D and E behind it. Improvised weapon  
options began scroll.  
  
As Target C began its swing, she used her lack of height to dodge underneath the blow, half  
crouching, and then launched herself up at an angle, using Target A's arm to stab Target C up  
through the abdomen into the chest cavity, disrupting vital functions located there. The resulting  
kinetic energy displacement caused him to fly into his fellow creatures, knocking them down and  
delaying them.  
  
Mapping functions considered layout possibilities in the few seconds' lull, leaving her free to return  
to the still functioning Target A, who was struggling to get up, grab his head and rapidly smash it  
against the tile floor, shattering part of its skull and the tile underneath it. Target A was relisted as  
zero threat.  
  
Aural sensors gave her a second's warning as Target E tackled her from behind, a full three seconds  
before her internal clock had expected that to be the earliest one of them to be in position to attack.   
That error was added to the troubleshoot list to be provided for Primary Programmer .  
  
"Acquisition needled of metabelian," she mocked the demon, as she hammered her arms into the  
ground, pushing the both up from the floor back towards the vertical. Once both feet were resting  
on the floor, she reached back over her shoulders, arms moving just a few degrees more than a  
human bone structure would allow. Once in position, she flipped Target E in front of her as heavily  
as she could. Target E lay on the ground long enough for her kick with her left leg, breaking the  
chest plates in multiple locations, then use the leg to carry the rest of her body in a jump over the  
demon just ahead of Target B and D.  
  
Vanity emulation software placed a reminder on the after-action file to clean the shoes.  
  
The aisle the mapping function led her to had hair products in the very front, information gleaned  
from a quick review from visual records, a brief glance, as she had originally entered the store. As  
she turned around in it to face the remaining targets, her arm shot out, pushing an entire shelf of hair  
care products (shampoo) on the floor.  
  
As she raised her arms to combat readiness positions, the sensation of hair care products (shampoo)  
on her epidermis triggered a data cascade. Combat experience files brought up previous file with  
her paired with Spike (vampire, ally) defeating a Target. Anomalous data point returned, wondering  
how hair care products were related to Spike. Multiple data points of her Spike experience timelines  
appeared to be missing. One truncated data file had her in Spike's domicile, running her hands  
through his hair (checking for injury?), feeling the hair care products (shampoo) on her hands,  
leaning in to have her data file truncated at that point.  
  
Another entry went into the after action report to visit Spike at his domicile to ask what had  
happened there 34 days previously. Perhaps it would help to remind he had been apparently  
suffering from a heating problem in his domicile that evening?  
  
Target D slipped on hair care product (shampoo) as planned, unfortunately his inertia and mass had  
been underestimated. As the Target barreled into her, she appended Demon Type 0005 file to  
include a hypothesis that non-terrestrial matter or slight gravity distortion accounted for the higher  
than expected mass, to be outputted to Watcher .  
  
They came to rest against one of the shelves she had cleared, face-to-face. Options scrolled down  
her combat lists. None had success ratios higher the 37%.  
  
So she just hit. Punch (uppercut). Dodge. Swivel. Knee. Knee. Extend Leg Kick. Grab. Damage  
Control, visual center. Punch (roundhouse). Damage control, right arm. Chest strike. Right hand,  
Index finger, Inoperative, fixed in safety mode. Opportunity Identified!  
  
She extended her left arm, spreading her fingers into a V just before impact. Her fingers speared  
through Target D's eyes. Her half closed right hand braced on the Target's chin; she closed her left  
hand and pulled.  
  
Append additional data to Demon Type 0005. Interior of sinus cavity display several unique  
characteristics. Secondary jaw structure appears to be entirely made of molars.  
  
"Notating membranes deserve comeuppance."  
  
As Target D slumped to the ground in front of her, she considered Target B for a moment,  
reassessing her capabilities in light of damage received, and by the fact that Target B had drawn an  
edged weapon. Possible response: shield.  
  
As the final target moved to engage, she turned, grabbed the cleared shelf, lifted and pulled. The  
metal shelf came from its mooring wall, and she completed the turn, using the shelf to swat aside  
the first edged weapon strike. Target withdrew momentarily, allowing time for her to adjust the  
shelf, grabbing the edge on one hand, and balance the rest on the crook of her elbow.  
  
He made to attack again; she twirled the shelf in response. As he withdrew, he feigned an attack  
to her other side. She dropped the shelf, kicked it back up to her other hand with the face of her  
foot, and swatted it away again. The next attack was a simple thrust, but predicative software  
estimated point of impact, and auto memory knew precisely where every hole in the shelf was, and  
that the edged point found itself perfectly aligned with one of the holes, forcing it slightly wider but  
also trapping the edged weapon fast in the metal. Holding onto the shelf, she leaned forward and  
let it roll over her shoulder, from right to left, the metal making small rips on her clothes, but not  
damaging the artificial epidermis underneath. As the shelf twisted in the roll, the edged weapon was  
forced from the demon's appendage and clattered to the floor.  
  
Before further options could be considered, Target B began to leave the vicinity.   
  
Pursuit and decapitation by shelf provided the patter protocol time (6.7 seconds) to carefully  
consider the most important line, the final one.  
  
"Polar eclipse has birded your drive."   
  
Total time elapsed: 56.9 seconds. Power supply remained adequate to complete the mission.  
  
A few moments to take care of after action protocols, swap out combat subsystem software to social  
interactive ones and reset human camouflage programs, she once again approached the counter.  
  
"Pardon me, sir. I have a product inquiry."  
  
She waited ten seconds.  
  
"Sir?"  
  
She leaned over the counter. The employee was still huddled underneath the cash register.  
  
"Sir, the people with bad skin condition who certainly were not demons have been incapacitated.   
I was wondering if you could help me with a product inquiry?"  
  
He merely looked up to her with glazed eyes.  
  
She updated her internal timetable. Dealing with the demons fell with allotted time allowance of  
the task, but her social interactive software insisted it would take at least 5 minutes until the  
employee would be able to assist her.  
  
She parked the vehicle on the street, not wanting to disturb anyone. Unfortunately, she did not need  
to have bothered, because she approached the house, she could hear multiple voices inside.  
  
"You stupid silly bit! I knew this whole bot idea was madness. It's toddled off to who knows  
where." The sound of Spike's voice oddly reassured her that everything was fine. Spike only yelled  
when he was only upset. When he was mad, he would be silent and kill things.  
  
She wondered how she knew that.  
  
"Hey! It wasn't my silly idea to build her in the first place! And the programming used in her is  
completely crazed. I had to delete whole directories of lust profiles! You can't expect me to have  
reprogrammed everything overnight, I only got her CPU up yesterday!" Was Willow upset that she  
hadn't fulfilled her operating profile? She rechecked everything, and everything did seem to follow  
internal logic/responsibility chains.  
  
"Guys, can we just find her "  
  
"I am here, Dawn," she announced as she opened the door and entered.  
  
Willow, Tara and Spike were all in the living room to the left of the entrance, Dawn in the  
entranceway to it. They all turned to face her. Tara spoke first as Willow cautiously stepped  
forward and Spike suddenly noticed the dust on a nearby lamp. She assumed that was what he was  
looking at, even though even with her vision enhancements, she couldn't detect any. Vampires do  
have especially sensitive, senses, she remembered. Especially tactile.  
  
"Buffy, where were you? You don't need to patrol yet, not till you're better."  
  
"I was fulfilling my programming, Tara. I am sorry I took so long, but the store employee was very  
uncooperative."  
  
Willow suddenly seemed to be ticking off alternatives in her head, each worse than the one before,  
and cautiously asked, "How were you fulfilling your programming?"  
  
Buffy merely stepped closer to Dawn, triggering a lurch from Spike towards them, only to be stilled  
when she stopped short of Dawn.  
  
"Dawn, my aural sensors are highly sensitive. I heard you crying 72 minutes ago."  
  
Dawn suddenly turned guilty as she stuttered out, "I didn't mean to "  
  
"It is all right Dawn. My social interaction software needs several major upgrades before I can  
comfort you adequately, but fortunately a brief information search revealed the cure for all ills. A  
brief drive was necessary to procure it for you"  
  
She pulled out of the bag she had been carrying a large container of premium ice cream (chocolate)  
that she finally coaxed the employee into locating for her. Dawn merely looked up at her with  
amazement written on her features.  
  
"I hope this helps you to feel better."  
  
Dawn merely whispered, "Why?"  
  
Buffy tried to understand the question, and answered with the only possible response her software  
allowed.  
  
"Dawn, I am you sister. I love you." 


End file.
